Windham was a regular manufacturer of paradoxes. The greatest number of minds seem utterly incapable of fixing on any conclusion, except from the pressure of custom and authority: opposed to these, there is another class less numerous but pretty formidable, who in all their opinions are equally under the influence of novelty and restless vanity. The prejudices of the one are counter-balanced by the paradoxes of the other; and folly, ‘putting in one scale a weight of ignorance, in that of pride,’ might be said to ‘smile delighted with the eternal poise.’ A sincere and manly spirit of inquiry is neither blinded by example nor dazzled by sudden flashes of light. Nature is always the same, the store-house of lasting truth, and teeming with inexhaustible variety; and he who looks at her with steady and well-practised eyes, will find enough to employ all his sagacity, whether it has or has not been seen by others before him. Strange as it may seem, to learn what any object is, the true philosopher looks at the object itself, instead of turning to others to know what they think or say or have heard of it, or instead of consulting the dictates of his vanity, petulance, and ingenuity, to see what can be said against their opinion, and to prove himself wiser than all the rest of the world. For want of this, the real powers and resources of the mind are lost and dissipated in a conflict of opinions and passions, of obstinacy against levity, of bigotry against self-conceit, of notorious abuses against rash innovations, of dull, plodding, old-fashioned stupidity against new-fangled folly, of worldly interest against headstrong egotism, of the incorrigible prejudices of the old and the unmanageable humours of the young; while truth lies in the middle, and is overlooked by both parties. Or as Luther complained long ago, ‘human reason is like a drunken man on horseback: set it up on one side, and it tumbles over on the other.’—With one sort, example, authority, fashion, ease, interest, rule all: with the other, singularity, the love of distinction, mere whim, the throwing off all restraint and showing an heroic disregard of consequences, an impatient and unsettled turn of mind, the want of sudden and strong excitement, of some new play-thing for the imagination, are equally ‘lords of the ascendant,’ and are at every step getting the start of reason, truth, nature, common sense and feeling. With one party, whatever is, is right: with their antagonists, whatever is, is wrong. These swallow every antiquated absurdity: those catch at every new, unfledged project—and are alike enchanted with the velocipedes or the French Revolution. One set, wrapped up in impenetrable forms and technical traditions, are deaf to every thing that has not been dinned in their ears, and in those of their forefathers, from time immemorial: their hearing is _thick_ with the same old saws, the same unmeaning form of words, everlastingly repeated: